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This paper theorises the role of men and mobilising masculinities in organisational change towards gender equality by investigating how change agents in academia give meaning to their involvement in such change. Via narrative inquiry I compare the working of emotions and affective solidarity in narratives of 15 male and female change agents at nine universities in four countries. The analysis shows that both male and female change agents mobilise different types of masculinities to foster gender equality: chivalrous masculinity, disruptive masculinity and inclusive masculinity. This paper contributes to the gender equality change literature by theorising masculinities as not only hindering but also potentially transforming organisations in the direction of gender equality. The interplay between knowledge and affect in the narratives of gender equality change agents suggests that interventions should aim to move emotions and support affective solidarity through recognising and understanding participants' experiences with systems of inequality.

Laat ik deze recensie beginnen met een duidelijk standpunt: ik vind dat iedere methodoloog basiskennis zou moeten hebben van genderverhoudingen en andere vormen van sociale ordening. Met gender bedoel ik de sociale betekenis die in de samenleving wordt toegekend aan sekseverschillen. Een ordeningsprincipe dat grote consequenties heeft voor de ervaringen die mensen van kinds af aan opdoen, de wijze waarop ze benaderd worden en de verwachtingen die ze over zichzelf en anderen hebben, vergelijkbaar met klasse en etniciteit. Waarom die basiskennis nodig is? Omdat je anders fundamentele methodologische fouten kunt maken. Zo hoorde ik enkele jaren geleden een hoogleraar methodologie een onderzoek presenteren over de samenhang tussen opleidingsniveau en sociale status. De statistische analyses die het onderzoeksteam had uitgevoerd, waren afgeleid uit een groot databestand. In een noot stond te lezen dat uit het databestand een steekproef van louter mannen was getrokken, vanwege een hoger aantal missende waarden bij de vrouwelijke respondenten. De titel, de inleiding en conclusies suggereerden echter conclusies met algemene reikwijdte. De algemene geldigheid van deze conclusies was volgens mij onterecht en dat heb ik ook gezegd. Het is een statistisch gegeven dat vrouwen veel vaker onder hun opleidingsniveau (blijven) werken dan mannen. Getoetst aan de hand van een steekproef van louter mannelijke respondenten zou het verband tussen opleiding en status dus onterecht sterker kunnen lijken dan het feitelijk is. Het maakte mij duidelijk dat kennis over genderverhoudingen niet zo vanzelfsprekend is, als het zou moeten zijn. Overigens wil ik daarmee niet zeggen dat genderverhoudingen belangrijker zijn dan andere sociale verhoudingen. Juist de samenhang tussen gender, klasse, leeftijd, etnische afkomst en andere ordeningsprincipes is bepalend om sociale verhoudingen te begrijpen.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the work of the Dutch government's "Taskforce Part‐time Plus" set up to stimulate longer working hours for particularly Dutch women holding part‐time jobs of less than 24 h per week, to help counteract a predicted structural shortage of manpower.Design/methodology/approachIn 2009, the Taskforce commissioned two studies. The first study comprised three surveys, respectively, among: women holding smaller part‐time jobs; full‐time working men; and employers. The second study focused on the relationship between ambition, working hours and gender. A survey of 7,000 male and female labour‐market participants was combined with qualitative data collection, encompassing focus group interviews with 35 male and female part‐time workers and their managers, and three group model building sessions.FindingsThe first study showed that only a small amount of Dutch part‐time working women is willing to work longer hours in the short term. In the second study, the hypothesis that women's lower working hours could be explained by a lack of career ambition was rejected. However, the results showed that women did neither feel challenged, nor supported by their working and household conditions to extend their working hours to realize their ambitions (in the short run).Originality/valueThe paper illustrates that, in the Dutch case and in some contexts, greater equality, diversity and inclusion not only demands support for reduced work‐loads, but rather calls for a new culture in which women's marginal labour‐market participation does not remain unquestioned.

PurposeThis paper aims to introduce the theme of the special issue – diversity management beyond the business case. It addresses two main questions: first, how increased diversification within workgroups or labour is dealt with via diversity management, and second what the effects are of this increased diversity for group performance.Design/methodology/approachThe different contributions are embedded into two important discussions in the literature: problems with the concept of diversity and problems with outcomes of diversity management.FindingsReflecting on the contributions to this special issue, it is argued that solely emphasizing business case arguments for supporting the implementation of diversity management may be rather risky. They conclude with a plea for emphasis on arguments of justice and sustainability of the employment relationship and discuss future avenues for research.Originality/valueThe paper shows the difficulty of universally applying the concept of diversity and diversity management. In addition, it shows that the claimed positive impact of diversity management is contingent on several factors.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the practices utilized by university actors when implementing gender quotas, and study how these practices affect gender equality in academic decision-making bodies.


Design/methodology/approach
The study applies a practice theory lens to the case study of a Belgian university implementing a gender quota by performing 26 semi-structured interviews with actors, and collecting and analyzing relevant organizational documents.


Findings
This study shows that university actors implement gender quotas through three practices: gender-specific calls, scouting and "playing around". Identifying this variation in practices helps to understand both actors' sense-making of compliance with gender quotas and women's decision-making power in academic bodies.


Research limitations/implications
This study explores how practices interact with the organization's broader context and its power dynamics. In future studies, adding ethnographic observations would strengthen the practice approach.


Practical implications
The study indicates that implementing gender quotas can foster women's representation in decision-making, but that a strictly procedural sense-making of gender quotas could also undermine this. Universities should continue implementing gender quotas, further analyze their implementation practices and comprehensively adapt their organizational policies and practices to comply with gender equality goals substantively.


Originality/value
Through a practice theory approach, this paper offers original insight into how actors comply with gender quotas. Uncovering the implementation process in particular, the paper reveals how gender quotas could foster gender equality in academic decision-making.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the still unresolved issue of explaining the mixed diversity effects on team performance found in empirical research. A special focus is on context factors that have remained systematically unexplored with regard to their potential moderating role.Design/methodology/approachThis review thoroughly analyses 30 empirical studies on direct diversity‐performance effects. Information on team context is collected and compared according to diversity type and its relationship with performance. As meta‐analyses and narrative reviews provide contradicting evidence, empirical studies are evaluated in terms of regression results as well as correlation coefficients.FindingsThe comparison of regression and correlation results finds contradictions concerning the trend towards positive or negative relationships. Context factors with moderating potential are discovered for some of the tested diversity variables. Reported curvilinear relationships seem to be responsible for non‐significant outcomes of linear analyses.Research limitations/implicationsThis review is limited as it only includes studies on direct relationships of diversity and performance whereas work on the link of diversity and team processes is not considered. Empirical diversity studies in the future should include more detailed information on context factors, especially descriptive data of the sample population. New research in this field should furthermore test whether non‐linear relationships exist as they might be the cause for non‐significant linear relationships.Originality/valueThis paper provides valuable insights for researchers investigating the impact of diversity on team performance as it highlights the importance of descriptive context information and potential moderating variables.

Purpose
– Interventions to support gender equality in organisations are often unsuccessful. Stakeholders disagree about the causes and problem definition of gender equality or pay lip service to the principle of gender equality, but fail to implement gender equality in practice. The purpose of this paper is to examine participatory modelling as an intervention method to support stakeholders in: reaching a shared problem definition and analysis of gender inequality; and identifying and implementing policies to tackle gender inequality.


Design/methodology/approach
– The authors apply participatory modelling in case studies on impediments to women's careers in two Dutch universities.


Findings
– This study shows that participatory modelling supported stakeholders' identification of the self-reinforcing feedback processes of masculinity of norms, visibility of women and networking of women and the interrelatedness between these processes. Causal loop diagrams visualise how the feedback processes are interrelated and can stabilise or reinforce themselves. Moreover, they allow for the identification of possible interventions.


Research limitations/implications
– Further testing of the causal loop diagrams by quantifying the stocks and the flows would validate the feedback processes and the estimated effects of possible interventions.


Practical implications
– The integration of the knowledge of researchers and stakeholders in a causal loop diagram supported learning about the issue of gender inequality, hereby contributing to transformative change on gender equality.


Originality/value
– The originality of the paper lies in the application of participatory modelling in interventions to support gender equality.

Are there good practices of collective bargaining on equal opportunities in the Netherlands and, if so, what can we learn from them? The article answers these questions by means of extensive reference to a case-study on the Dutch contract catering sector, which has a collective agreement including detailed provisions on childcare and steps to tackle sexual harassment. Contract catering, a relatively new sector in the Netherlands, underwent rapid expansion in the nineties. The sector is characterised by a high proportion of female employees (75%), three quarters of whom are employed in a part-time capacity, and a relatively low degree of organisation. As in the rest of the Netherlands, industrial relations in this sector are strongly institutionalised and the whole process of preparation, bargaining and implementation of collective agreements takes place in a consultative body for labour and management, namely the Contract Catering Joint Committee. The attention paid to equal opportunities dates from the first bargaining round conducted in the catering sector at the end of the eighties. In that period societal attention to the topic was combined with strong economic growth in the sector and the employers'wish to attract female employees. Especially re-entering women were expected to combine the right service-directed attitude with the willingness to work flexible hours. An infrastructure of (female) experts on equal opportunities from within the trade unions activated personal involvement of some (male) negotiators in the topic. During consecutive bargaining rounds framework agreements were concluded on affirmative action, parental leave, child-care provision and sexual harassment. Especially the fact that working groups of labour and management were set up on the last two topics contributed to the relatively successful outcome in respect of these arrangements.

Bestehen in den Niederlanden erfolgreiche Praktiken in den Tarifverhandlungen zur Chancengleichheit und wenn ja, was können wir daraus lernen? Diese Fragen will der Artikel durch eine ausführliche Fallstudie des niederländischen Vertragsküchengewerbes beantworten. In diesem Sektor wurde ein Tarifabkommen abgeschlossen, das detaillierte Bestimmungen über Kinderbetreuung und über Maßnahmen zur Bekämpfung sexueller Belästigung beinhaltet. (...) Durch die Infrastruktur (weiblicher) Gewerkschaftsexperten auf dem Gebiet der Chancengleichheit konnte das persönliche Engagement einiger (männlicher) Unterhändler für dieses Thema aktiviert werden. In mehreren aufeinanderfolgenden Verhandlungsrunden wurden Rahmenvereinbarungen zu Erziehungsurlaub, Kinderbetreuung und sexueller Belästigung abgeschlossen. Daß bei diesen Vereinbarungen relativ erfolgreiche Ergebnisse erzielt wurden, ist insbesondere der Einrichtung von Arbeitsgruppen aus Arbeitnehmer- und Arbeitgebervertretern zu den zwei letztgenannten Themen zu verdanken. (Transfer / FUB)

This paper evaluates a group model‐building project concerning safety in a city neighbourhood. Stakeholders such as inhabitants, housing association managers, and police were directly involved in constructing a system dynamics model of their situation and defining actions to improve safety. Evaluation studies of group model‐building typically assume that participants in modelling sessions share their insights, and in turn, the information exchanged changes their opinions. The modelling project addressed in this paper concerns a messy problem in a public multi‐organizational setting, a situation characterized by ambiguity and conflict. We show that modelling in an ambiguous and conflicted situation helps participants to exchange information and change their opinions on the issue, even when not all conflicts are openly discussed. Group model‐building positively impacts the quality of conclusions reached. The paper ends with a discussion of limitations and areas for future research. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.